


Concealed Carry

by slipstream



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crime Fighting, F/F, Femslash, Identity, Identity Porn, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:11:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipstream/pseuds/slipstream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurie’s not blind, Rorschach’s not what he seems, and this is *not* a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [findmyantidrug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/findmyantidrug/gifts).



Laurie Juspeczyk is twelve years old the first time she has a knife pressed to her throat.

Her assailant is one of her new trainers, a thickly-set woman with soft features and a pageboy haircut, conservatively dressed in a fashionable but modestly cut grey twill pantsuit and pearls. She’d thought her mother had been joking when she’d introduced them earlier in the afternoon, unable to imagine the woman in front of her doing anything more athletic than shelving books at the local library.

It’s only now that they’re wrestling across the padded dojo floor, Laurie bucking under her weight and twisting what free limbs she has in an attempt to find a way out of the hold that she realizes that the brunt of the woman’s bulk is muscle.

“Good!” she barks when Laurie manages a hit across her knuckles that loosens her grip on the hilt. “Again!”

Laurie obliges her with a jab to the median nerve at her elbow that makes her fist fall open, knife clattering to the floor, and loosens her half nelson enough for Laurie to slip free. She rolls into a defensive crouch, legs coiled beneath her to spring to the attack if needed, only to look up and into the cold, black barrel of a bolt action revolver.

“Bang, you’re dead.” Her finger’s off the trigger but that isn’t the point. Laurie lets out an exasperated huff as the woman coolly smoothes out the rumpled lines of her suit and collects the dropped knife, placing it and the gun in a line at the edge of the mat like a challenge. She helps Laurie to her feet and they square off again.

“Okay, kid. I’ve got at least four more weapons hidden on me, probably more. You’re stuck with me until you’ve learned how to spot ‘em all at ten paces, minimum.”

Four years later she is in a room full of people wearing disguises, all of them masked but for her and the glowing blue god radiating quiet bemusement and god knows what else.

Laurie’s not paying much attention to Dr. Manhattan, though, who poses no observational challenge with his Adonis physique and skimpy black shorts. The woman on his arm is more interesting, her contours sheathed in a stiff, pearly cocktail dress, but not nearly as interesting as the hunched figure on the other side of the room, fedora pulled low and trench coat weighted down with a heavy flashlight, some smoke bombs, and a rectangular shape that she guesses to be some kind of book.

Laurie looks at Rorschach and smiles. If Rorschach smiles back—which she very highly doubts—the expression is swallowed by languid pools of shifting ink.

*

New York has never really felt like Laurie’s turf—too much of her mother’s history still drifting down alleyways and airing out on the newsstands, though it’s been better since Sally moved out west to sunny California—but it’s never failed to offer up a few festering examples of humanity in need of a good beat down on the nights when she’s needed a justifiable vent for her anger and frustrations and for that she has to love it, however begrudgingly.

Tonight’s one of those nights, her emotions fueled by seven scotches and the echoing, infuriating guffaws of all the government suits lapping up Blake’s sneering presence like attention-starved puppies. She keeps wiping and wiping at her jaw with the back of her hand, as if that bastard Blake had left something foul behind when he’d touched her. It sure as hell feels like it.

She has no idea why her mother had wanted to fly in for the stupid banquet, much less why she ever agreed to accompany her. She just knows that she doesn’t want to be in the apartment when her mother comes tripping in at god knows what hour, reeking of gin and the cologne of the nameless, white-haired general that spent the evening courting her with half-drunken gropes and reminisces about painting her topless portrait onto the side of his B-17. Patrolling is as good of a hangover cure as anything she’s got in her medicine cabinet so she scrawls out a brief note explaining her absence, strips out of her black evening dress, slips into costume and out into the New York night.

Her place and usual territory is up in the Bronx but on an impulse she hops a train back downtown. Maybe she’s half hoping to run into Blake in the midst of something that’ll give her enough justification to hit him with something more substantial than scotch. Maybe it’s the train ride itself that she’s craving, balanced atop the curved top of the car with the dirty wind tangling her hair and snapping her costume’s silk shell tight against her muscles.

Whatever the reason, her head is clear and her fists are itching for some action when she drops into the seedy neon of Times Square. It’s nearly one in the morning but the streets are far from empty, and Silk Specter is quickly in the thick of it, busting two muggings and a string of petty drug deals within the course of two square blocks. She works in a radiating spiral, enjoying the burn of her muscles as she climbs, leaps, punches, and kicks, and the evening’s violence is going predictably enough until round about three when something odd catches her eye.

Down on a darkened, relatively quiet side street there’s a man messing with a manhole cover, prying at it with a crowbar and looking real nervous about the whole process, the conspicuously non-conspicuous duffle bag by his feet making the whole thing even dodgier. He’s a total shrimp, of average height but skinny enough that his suit droops off his shoulders and his pant legs billow slightly in the warm night breeze. Makes it real easy to spot the piece tucked into his waistband and the other holster strapped to his calf.

While the suit and matching hat are obviously second-hand it’s far from your typical sewer-going attire. The whole scene is just odd enough that when he finally manages to slide the heavy cover over enough to squeeze through Laurie decides to follow him.

It’s a tighter fit for her, and the silk of her costume isn’t nearly enough protection to keep the concrete lip from scraping her back bloody. She grits her teeth and bears it, some instinct telling her that she’s possibly on the trail of something big and that silent pursuit is in order. Down in the sewer she’s mindful of how loud her heels can be, softly picking her way along the narrow walkway and being careful to stay close enough not to lose the bob and weave of his flashlight him in the maze of concrete tunnels.

Laurie tries to keep track of all the twists and turns but it gets harder and harder as they make their way deeper into the sewers. Thankfully for her drycleaners they don’t linger long in the raw sewage tunnels, veering quickly into the storm drains, dry now but for the occasional dribble from a cracked pipe.

She’s not sure how long they walk, half an hour, maybe more. They could be under the Chrysler building by now for all she knows. There’s a low, rhythmic hum in the air, like the synchronized pneumatic heartbeat of a dozen machines. The pipes snaking along the curved walls have multiplied in number, swelling in size as half a dozen merge into another before branching off again. She can see light up ahead, warmer and fuller than the dim flicker of Shrimpy’s flashlight, and the tunnel echoes with his careless footsteps and the more distant rise and fall of human voices. Laurie steels herself—whatever brought Shrimpy down here is most likely just around the corner—and proceeds cautiously, fists at the ready.

As she edges around the corner the tunnel suddenly opens up into a large, vaulted room lined with rusting tanks and crammed with a small jungle of pipes. Some sort of underground pumping station, an outlying tributary for the main pumps down at the city waterworks, now serving double duty as an outlining tributary for some larger network of criminal activity.

Through the tangle of pipework she can just make out her mark picking his way towards the back of the vault, towards what though she can’t quite see. The pumps themselves provide the only possible advantage point, but at least the pipes make for decent cover and easy climbing. She clamors up, quiet as a cat, and slides across the dusty top of a large tank until she can just peer over the edge into the room below.

In the narrow space between the pumps and stone walls plastered with pornography somebody’s set up a little camp, two narrow cots and a rickety wooden table, the whole of the cramped hideout or waystation or whatever lit by a single kerosene lamp. Two men in cheap slacks, suspenders, and rolled-up shirtsleeves are seated at the table, a game of poker dealt out between them—Laurie can see the hand of one of them from here, two aces and a smattering of low-value diamonds—but they abandon their cards the moment as Shrimpy steps into the light.

“Fucking finally!” growls Aces, stabbing out the stub of his cigar. “Me and Marv damn near starved, we been waiting so long.”

One look at Marv shows that he’s in no danger of starving anytime soon: obviously the muscle of the little group, Laurie guesses him to weigh in at 310, easy, most of it in his shoulders, neck, and arms. His black bowler is almost comically undersized and perched atop his head at a jaunty angle, a clownish accessory at absolute odds with the utter meat slab of a face that hangs below it, long and thick and ruddy, wide mouth set in a grimly neutral expression.

Shrimpy draws up a chair and holds out the bag gingerly, as if expecting it or one of the two men before him to blow. “We’ve got a p-problem.”

Aces snags the bag out of his hands and digs around eagerly, licking his lips as he pulls out a greasy brown paper bag. His expression twists into something ugly, however, once the paper is pealed back to reveal two limp, soggy subs.

“No shit we got a problem. These sandwiches is cold.”

Marv grunts his assent, curling one thick lip threateningly at Shrimpy.

“A _b-big_ problem,” he squeaks.

“Jimmy backing out on us?”

“N-n-no. It’s Duke.”

Aces drops his sandwich. “ _Shit_. Did he run off with the goods?”

“No, I got ‘em.” Shrimpy clutches at the duffel a little possessively, and Laurie can see now that dinner was only the top layer. The bottom of the bag appears to be lined with a dozen or so large, bulky bricks wrapped in wax paper. “But Duke, he got pinned right after we made the transfer. Cops came after him on an o-outstanding warrant, a-agrivated a-a-assault.”

“So? You got the goods and he ain’t never talked before.”

“S-s-so this was only half. Who’s g-going to g-go and finish the r-r-rest of the deal?”

‘Jimmy who?’ Laurie wonders. ‘And what deal? C’mon, geniuses, drop your friendly neighborhood slightly hungover vigilante a fucking—’

There’s a horrible stench, more terrible even than the sewers themselves, and that’s all the warning she gets before a hard, leather-clad hand closes tightly around her mouth, yanking her backwards.

*

“Breathe like a freight train,” grumbles a raspy voice low in her ear. The heat of the body crouched low alongside her is muted by multiple layers of grimy clothing. “Will give away our position.”

And of course Rorschach _would_ have the fucking nerve to sound annoyed in this situation, as if she had done him a disservice by forcing him to sneak up on her and scare her nearly shitless.

She rolls her eyes, hopes he can’t feel her heart thumping a million miles an hour with his hand so close to her throat, and yanks hard on his dirty sleeve until he lets go.

“I’m not the one talking,” she mouths. “So shut up.”

The blots of Rorschach’s face twist upward in something almost like a smile, almost like a tiger with a mouthful of steaming intestines. He tilts his head back down towards the interrupted card game below them.

“— saying is, boss says this deal goes down, it goes goddamn down. But if yer guy can’t follow through then that’s yer fucking problem, not mine.”

They still haven’t voiced the exact particulars of the deal, but it’s something that’s got Shrimpy on edge. He keeps passing his hat back and forth between his hands, putting it on only to take it off again.

“W-Well _I_ can’t meet up with J-Jimmy. The Gunga Diner always gives me in-indi-indigestion.”

“So order a fucking cup of coffee then, Jesus!”

“What about y-you, Marv?” Shrimpy’s obvious fishing is pathetically desperate. “Interested? L-lunch on the boss’s dime?”

Marv slowly, pointedly, slurps down a long shred of wilted lettuce and picks up his cards, studying them at length. “Naw,” he says, laying down a four of clubs. Shrimpy doesn’t try and press it any further, and Laurie is reminded of the old joke about the 800 pound gorilla who sits anywhere he wants.

Aces leans back in his chair, contemplative. “I think it ain’t the food yer worried about, but Mr. the Gimmick, as it were.” He grins and takes a huge, obnoxious bite of his sandwich. Shrimpy looks more displeased than ever. “Too bad. Looks like the fuckin’ creeper is all yers!”

“Fine!” Shrimpy stands abruptly, knocking his chair back. “F-fine! We’ll see who the boss th-thanks, once he’s b-back!” Jamming his hat tightly over his long, bony head, he turns and marches out of the vault and back into the tunnels, confidence betrayed by a slight tremor in his tightly clenched hands.

Laurie makes a move to follow him but is halted by a hand at her elbow.

“We should go,” she hisses. “Unless you know the way outta here.”

“Wait,” murmurs Rorschach. “Still don’t know their intentions.”

It’s reasonable enough grounds to listen in a while longer, so she settles back into place, “accidentally” elbowing Rorschach in the kidneys as she does. A relatively petty payback for her earlier startle, all things considered, but it makes her feel better.

They wait, and wait, and wait and wait and wait, but the two men below them are silent in the wake of Shrimpy’s departure, content to bask in the lingering stink of his nervous indignation with the last of their sandwiches.

For a long time only sounds in the underground vault are the slap of cards being shuffled and dealt and the carefully shallow cadence of her and Rorschach’s own breathing. She raises an eyebrow at Rorschach, whose blots look grumpy but resigned to the pointlessness of any further eavesdropping.

What a waste of time.

Just she and Rorschach are deep into a silent, pantomimed argument about the best way to climb down from their perch without betraying their position Marv stands up suddenly, and he’s just tall enough to glare triumphantly over the lip of the tank and straight into Laurie’s eyes. She reacts on instinct, swinging both fists inward together to hit him hard across the temples, taking advantage of his moment of stunned, cross-eyed swaying to box him hard enough across the ears that he howls in pain.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Aces scrambling for the cots. He flips back a corner of the blanket, revealing a long, gleaming shotgun, but Rorschach is on top of him just as he slips his finger through the trigger. The shot goes wild, the echo of it like a bomb in the small space.

They don’t team up very often and it’s tempting to take a moment to watch Rorschach do what Rorschach does best, the brutally beautiful controlled chaos of his body as he makes short, violent work of Aces, but Laurie has her own thug to worry about. Marv is stumbling—there’s a crash as the tips over the table, dumping cards and the mysterious content s of the duffle bag everywhere even as the kerosene lamp smashes, fire licking quickly along the spreading puddle of fuel—but still standing so she swings out with her leg, intending to take him down with a no-nonsense stiletto to the eyeball.

Either he was playing up his injury or he’s got more sense during a fight than he appears to have the rest of the time because he catches her kick with one massive hand and yanks hard, pulling Laurie down from her perch. She manages to twist enough to land a good smash to his face with her other foot and Marv drops her like a hot stone. Her shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, but her head still hits the floor and bounces hard enough that she sees black stars.

“Spectre!” shouts Rorschach from across the room, snapping her back just in time to roll out of the path of Marv’s massive boot. She can’t roll too far, however, her way blocked by a growing wall of flame, and it’s much harder to dodge the whole of Marv himself when he slams the bulk of his body down on hers, elbow-first, like some sort of pro wrestler.

Laurie doesn’t panic—she’s been pinned worse than this—even as Marv leers down at her with a mouth full of crooked teeth and settles his weight more firmly across her chest. He knows he doesn’t need to wrap his hands around her neck to keep her from breathing.

Her ribs creak and crackle in protest but she keeps fighting, landing strike after strike at every nerve cluster she can reach. Blood is dripping from Marv’s ears, spattering to the concrete floor around her. The pipes and pumps behind him appear red-hot in the flickering light of the kerosene fire, throwing demonic, Rorschach shadows onto the vaulted ceiling. She can’t feel her hands, can feel the screaming emptiness of her lungs all too well as the edges of her vision dims, her whole field of view slipping out of focus.

Then, in the blurring blackness above, something bright and sharply metallic, swinging towards her.

It hits its target with a satisfyingly solid ring, like a mallet striking a heavy church bell, but Laurie isn’t conscious enough to appreciate the sound.

*

‘I’m on fire,’ Laurie thinks. ‘Holy shit, I’m on fucking fire.’

It certainly feels that way, heat all down one side of her body, hot enough that the post of her earring feels like a brand inside her earlobe, but that’s secondary to the ashy inferno in her chest. She doesn’t realize she can breathe again until she nearly coughs herself back into unconscious on a lungful of soot, but there’s no time to relish in her body’s miraculous ability to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide because somebody has her by the arms, is tugging her upwards into the red, hazy light.

“Come on!” There’s something almost like panic in Rorschach’s voice; she must have been hit harder than she thought. “Come on!”

Laurie’s coming as best she can, carefully rearranging each of her limbs beneath her as she finds them in an attempt to stand, but it isn’t fast enough for Rorschach. He wedges his small, wirey frame under one shoulder and hauls her to her feet. Dark bubbles burst across her vision for a moment and she shakes her head, trying to clear them, only to find herself half-stumbling, half-dragged along by Rorschach. There’s an urgency to his steps that she picks up on even through the ringing haze, so she doesn’t waste time asking questions, just does her best to put one foot in front of the other and not fall flat on her face.

They make it about a hundred feet. She feels the explosion before she hears it, the funneled force of it making them stumble. Rorschach yanks them into a side tunnel just as the main line collapses behind them, sealing them in darkness. There’s an ominous cracking noise somewhere above them, dust and a few chunks of concrete falling about their feet, but after a few heart-pounding moments the arch of the tunnel appears to stabilize, and their escape route holds.

In hindsight, the mysterious contents of the duffle bag seems pretty obvious.

“Jesus Christ!” she coughs into the growing silence. “I didn’t know C-4 could explode in a fire.”

“It doesn’t.” As if to cover for his earlier panic Rorschach’s rasp is clipped and professional, but Laurie notes with some satisfaction that he’s panting just as hard as she is.

“Then what—?”

“Experimental plastic explosive under development by Sekhmet Securities,” he explains. “Two shipments stolen last week, heard a rumor that some of Underboss’s old boys were looking to do some demolition. Decided to see whether any of the underground safe houses Nite Owl and I found in ’65 were still in operation.”

“So you know the way out?”

“Hurm. Maybe.”

“’Maybe’.” She has to laugh. The weight of the city above seems to press down on them from every angle, and Rorschach sounds no more concerned than if they had accidentally taken the wrong subway line uptown.

There’s a rustling of cloth and faint jingling of change as Rorschach digs through his trench, then with a click the rubble-strewn tunnel is flooded with greasy yellow light. The silver metal flashlight in Rorschach’s hand has a cracked lens and a large dent along the handle. Laurie has a moment to blink and taken in the horrifying state of their costumes—Rorschach looks downright comfortable coated in a thin layer of soot, but her yellow silk looks like a pair of drapes from a really seedy motel—along with the dark tunnel stretching out before them before the flashlight blinks out. Rorschach makes a disgruntled sort of grunt and smacks the flashlight against the palm of it hand. It flickers briefly back to life once, twice, but refuses to respond to further resuscitation efforts.

“Was a good flashlight,” Rorschach eulogizes into the darkness, sounding genuinely mournful. “Solid.”

“Obviously not _that_ solid, if it couldn’t handle one smack across a noggin’.”

Laurie could swear that Rorschach mutters something about three smacks, at least, but her head’s still ringing hard enough that it could have been her imagination.

She gropes along the curving wall until she finds the same thick bank of pipes she noticed on her way down. “Feel here. I think we can follow these pipes back to the sewers. It should be easier to find our way to the surface from there.”

Rorschach bumps against her arm at first, drawing away sharply as if burned, before carefully prodding along where she’s tapping against the metal.

“Mm. Sound plan.”

Apparently the phrase “good idea” isn’t part of Rorschach’s vocabulary.

“Right, let’s go.” She sets off down the tunnel before Rorschach can beat her to it, one hand trailing along the snaking pipework. She feels a bit like Gretel, following a trail of breadcrumbs, or maybe Red Riding Hood, deep in a dark wood, a large, stinking wolf slinking close behind.

‘Well,’ Laurie thinks, smirking to herself in the safety of the pitch black. ‘Stinking, at least.’

*

If Laurie had thought the trip downward had been long and winding, it had nothing on the journey back up. The abstract nature of time is made all the clearer with each cautious step. Rorschach’s watch is an old-fashioned model without a radium dial and thus of no help whatsoever, and by the time they manage to find the main sewer line again it feels like they’d been walking for hours blurring into days.

There’s an unmistakable roar of traffic rumbling overhead at the first manhole they find, forcing them back down into the sewers, but fifty feet onward they find a set of ladder rungs that leads up into what sounds like a quieter side street. Laurie goes up first, eager for some fresh air, but when she eases the heavy manhole cover aside it’s like somebody’s suddenly turned a giant, glaring spotlight down on both of them. Bright morning sunshine floods the sewers, stabbing mercilessly into her retinas.

“Agh, fuck!” She lets the manhole cover fall back into place and tries to blink the world back into focus. “How long were we down there?”

Rorschach checks his watch, making a surprised sort of chuff that Laurie finds a bit disconcerting. “Just after 10 o’clock.”

Laurie carefully eases the cover again, peering out onto the street above. They’ve come up under a sidewalk—not a busy one, thankfully, but there’s enough pedestrian traffic that they won’t be able to clamber up in full costume without attracting the wrong sort of attention. Judging by what she can see of the storefronts across the street they’re somewhere off 38th Street, meaning the Gunga Diner is well within walking distance.

The first inklings of a plan are creeping across her brain, shifting like the patterns of Rorschach’s namesake. She drops back down to where Rorschach is waiting, shoulders hunched and hands shoved deep into his pockets, warily eyeing the slivers of sunlight dancing across his boots. For the sake of her plan, Laurie hopes he’s not a vampire or something inconveniently supernatural like that.

“Okay,” she says. “We’re just south of Bryant Park, about three or four blocks away from the Gunga Diner. If we can rustle up some quick disguises that should give us plenty of time to get there and stake out a booth before the rest of the lunch crowd, position ourselves to get a drop on the deal as it goes down.”

“’We’?” asks Rorschach, tone and inkblots utterly impenetrable.

Laurie was expecting this.

“Yes ‘we’. This is a two-man job. What if Shrimpy…” Rorschach tilts his head, as if in question. “Skinny, too-big suit and a Saturday night special tucked into his socks, made the drop off?” He nods, grunting. His grunts seem to have taken an increasingly condescending tone these past few hours, but she dismisses him and them with a wave of her hand. “Anyway. What if he and that Jimmy guy split up and somebody needs to follow both of them?”

“Hmn.” Rorschach’s quiet a long time, long enough that Laurie wonders if he’s fallen asleep on his feet, lord knows that she’s fighting off the same urge, but then… “Should have civilian clothes stashed nearby. Not sure how you’ll make yourself decent, however. Don’t appear to have had much practice in that respect.”

Laurie bares her teeth in a cat-like grin.

“Oh I’ve got an idea. I just don’t think you’re going to like it very much.”

*

When Laurie’s right, she’s right. Rorschach grumbles and complains as he strips, movements slow enough that Laurie begins to worry about the time, but he does eventually hand over his coat. The trench is a little short for Laurie, bordering on a coat dress, but it covers all of her costume and with Rorschach’s scarf covering her hair it’s a decent enough disguise.

Rorschach’s costume at least resembles normal clothes, but the purple pinstripes are just iconic enough to start being a problem. He shucks out of his suit jacket, unbuttons his vest, and rolls up his sleeves, revealing pale, muscular forearms dotted with freckles and stray smudges of ash. Lastly, almost reluctantly, he rolls up his mask to rest just across the bridge of his blunt and puggish nose. What Laurie can see of his face is just as freckled as his forearms, his square chin clean-shaven and surprisingly full lips set into an unsurprising scowl. More important than this intriguing glimpse at the flesh behind the mask, however, is that when he ducks his head downward the brim of his hat makes it look like he’s not wearing a mask at all.

She hopes to God this works.

Rorschach climbs up to street level first, reaching down like a gentleman to lend her a hand out, and it says something about New York that they only get a few second glances from curious passersby, and those are directed mostly at Laurie herself. Laurie thinks at first that they recognize her and mentally curses her mother and her vain insistence on the importance of PR and marketability, but then she catches a glimpse of herself in the window of a nearby shop.

“Well I certainly look like shit.” She makes a face and prods gingerly at the bloody bruise blooming across her temple. Her skin is coated with enough grime and dust that she could pass for a coal-miner, and one glimpse at her hands and down at her legs confirms that the coverage is full-body.

Just behind her own reflection she can see Rorschach digging around in his pants pockets, pulling out in turn a blood-stained handkerchief, the broken-off stub of a much-chewed pencil, and a small fistful of change.

“Here.” He thrusts the change and handkerchief towards her, which she takes, and pointedly draws back the pencil. “Vendor at the corner should sell sunglasses. Wait for me there.” And with that he’s gone, vanishing smoothly into the crowd of passing pedestrians before she can even turn around.

She stops first to wet the handkerchief at a leaking fire hydrant, wiping down her hands, legs, and face until she guesses she’s reasonably clean. Underneath the brown, dried blotches of blood the handkerchief is finely embroidered at the edges, a lilac pattern evocative of lace and slips and other fine ladies under things. Laurie wonders how Rorschach ever came across it, decides it was probably a love token from some mobster’s mistress that Rorschach stole as a trophy during a bust long ago.

Rorschach was right about the corner vendor, and there’s enough change to pay for a cheap pair of oversized sunglasses—Laurie grins quietly to herself as she puts them on, feeling like a cross between a downtrodden babushka and some street walker trying to pass for Audrey Hepburn—with enough left over for a copy of the Gazette.

She takes the paper, shakes it open as if reading the Arts and Entertainment section, and props herself against a wall. Really she’s peering just over and beyond the columns of newsprint, watching the men wandering up and down the street and wondering which, if any, might be Rorschach. This one’s too tall, that one too dark, another far too cheerful, and just as she’s starting to ponder the possibility that she’s been ditched a short, gruff figure in a battered green suit and oversized hat comes storming out of the mouth of a nearby alleyway, a newspaper-wrapped bundle tucked under one arm.

“Follow me,” barks Rorschach, barely giving Laurie enough time to fold up her paper, much less take in his new appearance. Her stride is much longer than his but his pace is so quick and his movements through the morning crowd so fluid that it’s still almost half a block before Laurie manages to catch up with him. Laurie’s strangely captivated by his walk, the smooth rolling of his hips and confident thrust of his legs, thighs thicker than what she would have guessed lay hidden beneath the length of his trench. Waist and shoulders narrower, too, judging by the way his baggy green coat flaps and clings in the breeze.

“Nice disguise,” she says conversationally as soon as she steps alongside him. “You look homeless.” She pauses, thinks a moment. “…are you homeless?”

Rorschach doesn’t answer or even acknowledge the question. As they march Laurie can’t help but notice how much she towers over Rorschach in her heels, but between his popped coat collar and the wide brim of his hat she can’t see much of Rorschach’s face.

If she were to jump forward and snatch at his hat his whole face would be exposed to her and all the world. Not that Laurie’s got any plans on doing that. Rorschach is an asshole but she sees no real point just yet in trying to worm out his civilian identity. Her own relative lack of anonymity makes Laurie all the more keenly aware of the importance of masks, of distance and disconnect and true faces, and the fact that Rorschach trusts—if ‘trust’ is even the right word—her enough to walk this close to her in public without his greatest shield in place sends a thrill down her spine that curls warm and contented low in her belly.

On a suicidal whim, Laurie links her arm with Rorschach’s, like they were a couple out on a brisk stroll in the bright New York morning. Rorschach growls but no bite follows the low warning, not even when Laurie adjusts her stride to his and somehow they wind up pressed together, the curves and angles of their bodies fitting together better than Laurie could have ever expected.

She wonders if this is what normal people feel like, walking down the street on a beautiful fall morning in New York. She thinks about asking Rorschach, but doubts that his guess would be any better than hers.

*

It’s 11 o’clock straight up when they walk into the Gunga Diner. The restaurant is far from empty, the booths and counter dotted with the few lingering remnants of the brunch crowd as well as early bird lunch-seekers like themselves. Still they’re able to snag a booth that gives them a good view of the whole space as well as cover from the back.

Rorschach chooses the seat that allows him to watch the rest of the restaurant through one of the many gilded mirrors stretched along the walls, stuffs his bundle down the front of his coat, and disappears immediately behind a menu. Laurie slides in across from him and inspects her own menu, intentions slightly more self-indulgent.

Tired, sore, headachy from too much whiskey and one hell of a thump to the head, greasy diner food sounds like the best idea ever. She’s sure she’s got at least a five tucked somewhere into her belt, and after a minute of probably obscene-looking fumbling beneath the thick weight of Rorschach’s trench she triumphantly pulls out a wad of carefully-folded bills.

“I dunno about you, but I’m absolutely starved. You hungry? I’ve got enough to treat.”

A huff of air across the table, probably the closest Rorschach gets sighing like a normal person. He seems to be picking his words carefully, aware of all the potential civilian eavesdroppers around them.

“Not a date, Miss Jupiter.”

“Juspeczyk,” she corrects, a flash of steel in her voice. “It’s harder for the creeps to look up in the phone book. And who said this was a date? Technically it’s more of a business lunch, don’t you think?”

“Technically,” he reluctantly agrees.

“So I’d be a mighty poor businesswoman if I couldn’t multitask. C’mon, what’ll you have? I’m thinking the all-day-breakfast menu, heavy on the protein.”

From the hunch of his shoulders Laurie gets the feeling that Rorschach’s ready to argue further but just then their waitress, an older woman with way too much makeup who reminds Laurie of her mother, walks up to their table, pen and notepad at the ready. She raises a single eyebrow at their no-doubt odd appearance—Laurie in sunglasses, Rorschach rudely unkempt at best in his green suit and hat jammed low around his ears—but doesn’t comment. It’s New York; Laurie has no doubt she’s seen far stranger already during today’s shift.

“You two ready to order?”

“Yes!” Laurie grins brightly. Rorschach kicks her pettily under the table, which Laurie takes as a sign that she’s won the argument.

Laurie gets the naan pancake combo platter with two eggs over easy and idli stuffed with sausage. Rorschach, after much grumbling, orders from the strictly American side of the Gunga Diner’s fusion menu—cheeseburger, no mayo, curry fries and a Coke. His voice loses some of its gravel edge without the mask, and he tries to compensate for its loss by rasping throatily, sounding in the end like somebody with a horrible chest cold.

Their waitress picks up on it. “You want me to bring you some tea, hun? We’ve got honey and enough ginger to stuff a goose in the back.”

Laurie snorts loudly at the thought of Rorschach being anyone’s “hun”—she can’t help it—while Rorschach dismisses her concern with a darkly polite “No, just the Coke”. The waitress jams Laurie’s menu under her arm, reaches out for Rorschach’s, but on noticing the way he’s clinging onto it like it was the only shield in a battlefield of loosed arrows she just shrugs and walks away.

“You look absolutely ridiculous,” Laurie says lowly. “Are you going to sit that way the whole time?”

“Let you come along, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t _let_ me anything, got it?”

Rorschach grunts. A real conversationalist, this one. She wonders how he ever landed a partner as friendly as Nite Owl.

“You’re going to blow our cover. Look, I got you a paper while I was waiting, you can hide behind that.” She dangles the _Gazette_ enticingly. “Thought you might have fun raging at the editorials.”

“Pointless. Lazy liberal staff recycles same arguments edition after edition. Read one, read them all.”

She rolls her eyes. “Do the crossword, then. Jesus. Or is it not enough of a challenge for you, this early in the week?” Rorschach strikes her as the type that would work the Sunday puzzle in pen.

In the end Rorschach does take the crossword as well as the classifieds. He uses their table’s provided bottles of condiments to prop the latter section up as a divider between them, leaving the rest of the paper to Laurie.

She skims the headlines and the restaurant in turns but finds that she just doesn’t have the concentration needed for nuclear armament and the mysterious murder of two journalists down in DC . Laurie turns her thoughts instead to the puzzle of the vigilante sitting across from her. Something about Rorschach was… off. A whole lot of somethings, to be frank, but something beyond the norm, something normally hidden and bundled beneath layers of dirty cloth.

She thinks back over the fight down in the sewers, comparing it against all of the other occasions she and Rorschach have been forced to team up, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary stands out. Same with their long, dark climb back up through the labyrinth of tunnels, mostly silent but for the occasional spirited debate—to put it mildly—at every fork in the journey.

No, it had been later, when Rorschach was storming along in front of her, stripped of his trench and dressed in a new disguise that her brain had first noticed the disparity. Something about the pull and pucker of cloth in the wind, the way they had fit together as they walked, her hip settled neatly against the curve of Rorschach’s waist.

Their food arrives, hot and steaming and smelling like ten different types of sin, distracting her from her train of thought. Laurie, ravished, digs in with unselfconscious gusto. Rorschach, with a _hmph_ that might be amusement, soon follows.

*

By the time their waitress rather pointedly drops off their bill it’s getting close to one and Shrimpy hasn’t made an appearance. Rorschach still refuses to let Laurie pay his way. He somehow manages to dig out another grubby fistful of coins from some pocket, carefully counting out the exact amount to cover his half plus tip onto the table, tucking the few extra cents away.

The waitress comes back, scoops the small pile of dirty change and Laurie’s bills into her apron with a faint look of disgust. To stall for more time Laurie orders them both dessert.

“And I’m paying for all of it,” she says, jabbing a finger Rorschach’s way as their waitress brings out two coffees—four sugars in Rorschach’s, it’s a wonder he has any teeth left in his head— and a heaping plate of something doughy, deep-fried, and covered in chocolate sauce and whipped cream. “It’s only fair.”

“Nothing fair in false philanthropy meant to imbue the so-called giver with besotted delusions of generosity and selflessness and at the sake of the impoverished masses,” he growls, but Laurie notices that Rorschach doesn’t look entirely displeased by the towering sugar concoction before him, left hand immediately snaking out to hack at it with his fork. Still, she’s not about to let him get away with the insult so easily even as he inhales half of the pastry in two bites.

“It’s not false. Hell, it’s not even philanthropy. I’m paying you back for earlier. Even-Steven, as it were.” She pulls the plate over towards her side of the table, carving out a large chunk of the remaining contents for herself.

“What we do not based on ‘paybacks’.” Rorschach drags a bite of dough through a smear of syrup and wolfs it down. “Don’t count on someone being there to return the favor.”

“No shit,” she says. “You think I don’t know that? Mom was grooming me for this… job, calling, concentrated mass psychosis, whatever you want to call it, years before you popped up, if I recall. Besides, I wasn’t talking about that.”

At some point this became something like a game of chess, the two of them jabbing at the rapidly shrinking dessert in turn—white then black, point then counterpoint—but Laurie’s got an extra pawn tucked up her sleeve that Rorschach doesn’t know about. Left well enough alone as they ate, things have been clicking quietly together in her head until they form a clear, unavoidable truth.

Much to Rorschach’s disappointment, Laurie claims the last bite as her own.

“C’mon, I know you’re not so old-fashioned as to be completely opposed to the idea of a woman paying.” Rorschach scoffs and sticks out a pale, freckled finger to swipe up the last bits of powdered sugar and whipped cream from the plate.

Laurie licks her lips, braces herself. This is as good of an opening as she’s ever going to get.

“After all, _you_ bought the sunglasses.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

Rorschach doesn’t sputter or choke like Laurie expected. Doesn’t sneer, doesn’t mock, doesn’t bolt suddenly from the table, though every screaming line of the tense body across from her testifies that Rorschach’s fight or flight instincts are in full working order.

The restaurant seems suddenly very loud around them: a baby crying in one corner, a table full of construction workers guffawing at some obscene joke, the kitchen staff banging pots and pans and shouting orders to each other behind the counter. She can see now why such a public place might make good cover for the transfer of stolen goods, the crowd of people large and self-absorbed enough that —even pressed shoulder to shoulder—each individual patron remains anonymous, a single point of color within a larger impressionistic backdrop, so focused on their starring role in their own petty dramas that they’re oblivious to their existence as background noise for a hundred other tiny plays.

Laurie holds her breath, waits.

“Hmmn.” Rorschach snags a fistful of sugar cubes out of the bowl, chewing thoughtfully on two before pocketing the rest. Swallows.

“Good to see you’re not _all_ brawn, Miss Juspeczyk.”

Laurie laughs, loud enough and long enough that a few people crane their necks to see what’s so funny.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

The corner of Rorschach’s mouth quirks in what might be a smile, might be an aggression display. He’s— _she’s_ missing a tooth, a canine. Probably missing a couple more, given her apparent fondness for sugar.

She grins, baring her own gleamingly complete dentition. Two can play at this game. “Does owl-britches know?”

Laurie takes the glum, pointed silence of Rorschach’s non-answer as all the confirmation she needs.

“He doesn’t, does he? Man, and you two have been working together _how_ long? And he doesn’t— He hasn’t figured-- Christ, is he _blind_ or something?”

“Should be noted,” grits Rorschach, a little defensively. “That this isn’t exactly our own first meeting.”

“Noted,” chirps Laurie. “Don’t care. I still totally pinned you.”

She leans forward, drops her voice. “So how long were you going to leave me to hang as the only woman on the team? Do you know just how much sanctimonious pseudo-feminist bullshit Ozymandius can spew? It seems like every other Crimebuster’s meeting he’s going on and on to me about how much pressure I must feel as a role model, being the only active non-murdered female vigilante. God, if he only—”

Rorschach kicks her sharply under the table, growls. There’s a note of warning there that makes Laurie consider not only the _hows_ of it, but some of the possible _whys_.

“But if that’s not how you identify, that’s totally cool, too. I’m just saying—“

Another kick, this one hard enough to bruise

“Ouch! Okay, I won’t mention it again, I was just—“

Rorschach nods jerkily towards the door just in time for Laurie to turn and see Shrimpy come slinking in, looking paler and more nervous than ever.

As one, she and Rorschach turn back to their coffees, drinking as casually as is possible. The Gunga Diner is packed with people, all the booths occupied and the only empty seats at the counter down by their corner of the restaurant. Reluctantly, throwing worried glances over his shoulder with every other step, he brushes by their booth and perches himself uncomfortably on the furthest empty stool.

So far, so good. Laurie doesn’t think he ever caught sight of them down in the tunnels, so she’s less worried about being recognized than she might otherwise normally be, and Shrimpy’s even been so courteous as to sit close enough that they can hear him place his order: one coffee, black.

More of a woman of action, Laurie’s never really been one for stakeouts, but luckily for her patience and Shrimpy’s nervous indigestion none of them have to wait very long. At ten after on the dot a man walks through the door, scans the restaurant with practiced, professional efficiency and, spotting Shrimpy, immediately heads their way, stride confident and smooth.

“Here he comes,” she mutters, sizing him up. She’s not sure what she was expecting Jimmy to look like, but this guy ain’t it. Broad-faced, smiling pleasantly at a waitress, black hair slicked back and shining, his red suit and matching hat a little too ritzy for this daytime gathering, this guy looks more like a used car salesman than a mobster. ‘Not that that means much,’ Laurie muses.

“Hey kid, how ya doin’?” He smacks Shrimpy on the shoulder in greeting and takes the empty seat next to him. “Shame to hear about Duke. Nice guy, thought he’d stay outta prison longer, this time.”

To Laurie’s surprise, Shrimpy stares at him, slack-jawed. “F-Frank! Where’s J-J-J—“

“Jimmy says he ain’t coming. Heard something went wrong with the dropoff last night. You know anything about it?” He’s still smiling, tone light, but Laurie would have to be an idiot not to hear the threat beneath his words.

““I _made_ the d-dropoff,” Shrimpy insists. “The e-explosion wasn’t until _after_ I—“

“Mm. So you weren’t there?”

Shrimpy nods vigorously.

“Pity. Boss thought you might know something useful, but if you don’t…”

He trails off with a vague wave of his hand. Shrimpy fills in the blanks easily enough. Laurie can almost smell his fear, a sour, sweaty odor that stands out amidst the background of grease and coffee and Indian spices.

“No! Y-y-yes, I d-don’t— P-p-p-p-p—“

He looks like he might have a fit—stutter worse than ever, barely able to breathe between panicked syllables. Not-Jimmy looks genuinely concerned.

“Here, drink your coffee, you’ll feel better.”

He holds the steaming cup steady until Shrimpy manages to grab it with both shaking hands, and waits until Shrimpy’s calm again before he continues.

“Doesn’t matter, at any rate. Plan’s changed. Jimmy’s got a new gimmick worked out already, so you’re in the clear.”

Shrimpy manages a weak grin and half a laugh, taking another nervous sip of coffee. “S-seriously? Don’t k-kid me, Frank. You know I h-hate when you k-kid.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it.” He smacks Shrimpy sharp across the back again, causing him to choke on his coffee. “The boss, he understands.”

The motion appears casual, but something about it is just off enough that it makes Laurie go rigid in her seat. Frank stands, something small and glinting tucked into the palm of his hand. Shrimpy’s cough has turned ragged and wet, each inhale weaker than the last as Frank casually plucks a wad of cash out of his wrinkled coat pocket and slips it into his own: the payment intended for the unused explosives. He’s halfway back towards the door when Shrimpy slumps over the counter, a dark stain spreading over the back of his gray suit.

“C’mon!” Laurie hisses, grabbing Rorschach by the arm. It’s her turn to be the one doing the pulling, something like panic in her voice. “C’mon!”

They slide out of the booth, Laurie blindly scattering bills across the tabletop as they go. It’s probably way too much, but she doesn’t care.

They have to get out of here before anyone else realizes that Shrimpy is dead.

*

Quickly, quietly, they can’t call attention to themselves, can’t have their waitress blabbing on and on later to the cops about the weirdo couple in the booth just five feet away from the deceased. Maybe they’ll get lucky, maybe she’ll think they left long before the thin man at the end of the counter collapsed dead from a stab wound.

Yeah, and maybe Dr. Manhatten himself will appear suddenly in all his glowing, terrifying godhood and blow Frank into a million bloody fucking pieces.

She keeps her eyes fixed on Frank’s red suit as he slides easily between the crowded tables, serpentine and serene with his hands casually tucked into his pants pockets, and out the door. He’s moving too fast, they’re going to lose him. Abandoning stealth, she lets go of Rorschach and bolts after him.

The intersection of 40th and 7th is completely jammed, cars and people packed together like sardines as they wait for the light to change. Even with the sunglasses Laurie is temporarily blinded by the sudden shift from dim diner fluorescence to glaring concrete. She blinks furiously, trying to force the world back into focus, and catches a glimpse of Frank’s red suit across the street, heading north. She crosses against the flow of traffic, dodging around cars ignoring the angry shouts and blaring horns in her wake, and breaks into a sprint.

What the fucking hell were they thinking, two masked vigilantes out and about in broad daylight, lingering over lunch with Laurie still in costume, Rorschach’s mask and face shielded only by fucking newspaper? As she runs and ducks and dodges through the sidewalk crowd Laurie is conscious of a hundred staring eyes, watching her, but there’s nothing she can do but hope she’s moving too quickly for any one person to catch a good look.

Fifty feet ahead of her, Frank’s red shape is disappearing down the steps of the Times Square subway station. Swearing, Laurie pours on the speed—it’s a miracle she doesn’t fall and snap her neck as she flies down the stairs in her three-inch heels—but she’s too late. The train doors are already closing as she sails over the turnstile, Frank’s red suit just visible in the crush of bodies crammed inside, and she has to pull up short if she doesn’t want to tumble headfirst onto the tracks.

“Shit!” She kicks out at a nearby vending machine in anger as the train pulls away from the station. “ _Shit!_ ”

With a rapid patter of light feet Rorschach appears at her side, surveying the situation and letting out an oath of her own. Laurie would laugh at the novelty of Rorschach’s profanity if she weren’t so completely and utterly drained by the frustration of it all.

“Police on their way. Would be wise to vacate the area as soon as possible.”

It’s no joke, Laurie can hear the sirens, but the post-adrenaline crash hits her like a brick wall and she sways, exhausted. Barely able to see straight, she follows Rorschach blindly, down the empty platform, down a twisting flight of stairs, down, down, down a long hallway echoing with scarred white tile and the slow, mournful sax notes of a street musician.

It feels like a dream, like she’s following a foul-tempered black and white rabbit to some twisted version of Wonderland, but their downward journey doesn’t last forever. More stairs, going up this time, and they emerge street side almost two blocks away from the Gunga Diner.

Rorschach seems poised to dive back into the crowd, back into the mystery, but Laurie grabs at the back of her coat and drags them to a stop.

“Hold up,” she pants. “I need a minute.”

Rorschach grunts but waits politely as she pushes up the sunglasses to rub furiously at her eyes.

“God, I’m just absolutely thrashed, you know? I’m seeing double.”

“Hm,” Rorschach rumbles, sounding almost sympathetic. Laurie must be more tired than she thought. “Long night.”

“Yeah,” she laughs, weighing her options against her remaining cash. “Look, I think I’m done. For today, anyway. Is it okay if I borrow your coat a little while longer? My place is up in the Bronx and I don’t think it’d go down too well if I took the train there in full costume.”

Laurie’s more than half expecting Rorschach to say no. Rorschach’s quiet for a long time—hands in pockets, head bent, absently chewing at the corner of her chapped lips—so quiet that Laurie reaches up to start undoing the trench’s buttons, assuming that her silence is meant to punctuate the ridiculousness of Laurie’s request, but then—

“Have a place.” Each word sounds like it’s torn out of her with a rusty pair of forceps. “Closer. Are welcome to—“

Laurie waits, but Rorschach doesn’t finish the thought.

Slowly, it dawns on her. She grins.

“Rorschach, you dog. Are you inviting me over for a slumber party?”

“Hmph,” says Rorschach, but it isn’t a ‘no’.

*

It never ceases to amaze Laurie just how seedy New York can become in the space of a few blocks or even a few storefronts. Not that where they started out the day was the epitome of class and refinement, but there were a few tourists out wandering in search of Times Square and a few Indian grocers with stands of fresh produce and flowers poking out into the sidewalk,

Rorschach’s neighborhood, on the other hand, looks like somebody dropped a bomb on it. Or maybe a giant, rotting squid, to judge by the smell.

They stop at a payphone so that Laurie can call her mother and assure her she’s still not dead. Checking in with Rorschach standing right there, not even bothering to turn her back and at least pretend to not be listening in, makes Laurie feel stupid and sixteen again instead of twenty-three.

The phone rings—

Laurie’s itching for her pipe, wishes for the thousandth time that there was a pocket for it somewhere in the silly skin-tight costume her mother designed.

\--and rings—

She wonders how many martinis her mother has had today, if she’s even finished sleeping off the ones from last night. Maybe none. Maybe she called up Uncle Hollis and they’re reliving old times somewhere safe and in relative sobriety. Maybe…

\--and rings.

She isn’t sure whether or not she actually wants her mother to answer the phone until she hears the beep of her own answering machine. She’s glad she doesn’t have to navigate her mother’s minefield of mindfuck with Rorschach hovering nearby, but she can’t deny the brief, familiar ache of disappointment that flares up as her own voice echoes lonely and mechanical down the miles of telephone wire.

“Hi Mom. Some business came up while I was out. Don’t worry, I bumped into a colleague and we’re working on it together. I should be back sometime tonight. You know where everything is. Restock whatever you empty out of the booze cabinet.”

She bites her tongue, briefly repentant, but hangs up before she can take back the barb.

Rorschach, damn her, doesn’t comment on the tone of her message, just tilts her head and indicates the direction they should go, leaving Laurie to fill the awkward silence as they walk.

“There was a dinner last night at the Waldorf, honoring the Comedian. She wanted to go— why I have no fucking idea—and made me come along. Wanted me to wear a nice dress and pop champagne and walk around all night like he hadn’t tried to fucking rape her and even if he did, like nobody there knew about it.”

Her anger flares hot and fresh within her, making her clenched hands shake. She shoves them into the trenches pockets, but there’s no hiding it from Rorschach.

“Can’t imagine that went well,” she rumbles.

“No it fucking didn’t.” Laurie sighs. “I don’t even know why they had the fucking thing in the first place, there’s not much ‘honorable’ about him.”

“Brave American.”

“He’s a coward and a creep,” Laurie spits. “And you’re better off if he continues to think you’re a guy.”

“Hnnk. Didn’t mean to justify or condone.” She tilts her head up just enough for Laurie to catch a glimpse of a bitter, cynical sneer. “City prefers its heroes bawdy and patriotic. Clean. Makes them think they’re the same, helps them pretend that filth and corruption outside is not their fault. Keep on pretending that decay is hallmark of next generation, keep on ignoring the filth and horrors of their own youth.”

Somewhere above them, a man screams obscenities at a woman, who screams hoarse obscenities back. Someone else turns up the sound on their radio, trying to drown them out. The tune is cheerful and jazzy and makes Laurie feel sick to her stomach.

At length, Rorschach shakes her head. “Don’t know your mother’s intentions.”

“Well,” Laurie laughs, bitter and hollow. “Mothers, you know?”

“No,” says Rorschach.

They walk together, strides matching, the silence between them a comfort now rather than an awkward barrier. When Laurie links their arms again, Rorschach doesn’t even so much as grumble.

*

Just as Laurie’s aching feet are threatening violent mutiny Rorschach steers them up a set of concrete steps and into the narrow, shabby lobby of the Midtown YWCA.

Laurie raises an eyebrow but doesn’t give voice to her surprise. Before today she would never have thought to go looking for Rorschach in a women’s dormitory, which is probably the exact reason that Rorschach chose the place. That and the lobby staff’s long experience in not giving out the names and details of their lodgers to random people off of the street, lest some abusive ex come knocking.

The woman at the front desk eyes Laurie with cautious reservation—wary of the strange face but sympathetic of whatever circumstances left her so dirty and with a brilliant purple bruise peeking out from the edges of her sunglasses—until she spots Rorschach at her side. With a nod she buzzes them through the security door—a thick steel thing coated with layers upon archeological layers of graffiti and flyers—and to the stairs beyond.

Laurie’s tired enough that by the time they reach Rorschach’s floor her legs feel like she’s climbed the Empire State building instead of seven measly stories. Rorschach stops in front of a door halfway down the hall, pulls out a set of stained brass keys, and lets them inside.

Rorschach’s room is roughly the size of a janitor’s closet and about as cheerful, dingy white paint peeling away like a scab to reveal wounded layers of institutional greens and yellows. Newspapers are stacked on every available surface and the narrow bed is covered in a tangled nest of sheets, dirty clothes, and old bandages. There’s a tiny sink crammed underneath the room’s sole window and—in seeming defiance to all the laws of spacial physics—an actual wooden, full-sized wardrobe shoved into a corner. Though battered and scarred the wardrobe’s lines and wooden inlays attests to its history as a genuine antique, and one door hangs open just far enough for Laurie to see a handful of old-fashioned blouses hung on wire hangers.

“Shower’s down the hall,” says Rorschach briskly. Now that they’re here she seems suddenly eager to have Laurie back out again. “Communal towels.”

“Good. Means they’ve probably been washed sometime in the last century.”

For all her snark, the idea of a hot shower—hell, even a tepid one—is so fucking delicious that Laurie kicks off her heels and turns right back around in search of the bathroom. She regrets her bare feet when she sees the grungy state of the floor tiles, but hell, twelve hours ago she was wading blind down a goddamn New York City sewer, so she sets her reservations aside, grabs a stack of towels, and claims an empty shower stall.

Rorschach’s coat creaks as she shrugs out of it, stiff with grime and already molded to her body after a few hours’ wear. Her costume’s black bodysuit is fine if a little rank with sweat, but the yellow silk shell is criss-crossed with dirt in a pattern reminiscent of her preteen attempts at copying the hippie style. Shaking her head, she sets the whole bundle on the bench where it’ll at least stay dry, peels off her underwear, and yanks the shower handle all the way over to hot.

The shower spits and hisses for several seconds before coughing up its first spray of rust-colored water. Laurie makes a face, but the temperature is decent and the pressure is better than her own tap so she eases gratefully into the spray. There’s a pump of generic soap screwed into the wall, so Laurie takes a handful and starts to work her way down her body, hissing faintly as she rediscovers each bruise and scrape. Her shoulder’s in the worst shape; it takes a few minutes before the shower’s staccato spray eases some of the stiffness from the muscles there, and it leaves her itching for something else that she can’t quite lay a finger on.

When she pads back to the room—body and hair wrapped in thin institutional towels—Rorschach has kicked off her boots and stripped down to trousers and a thin, ratty undershirt. She’s got her mask back on—smooth and perfect and inhuman and pulled firmly down the length of her neck—and is bent low over the room’s tiny sink, scrubbing sourly at the black soot staining the cuffs of her white dress shirt.

From this angle Laurie can just pick out the faint lines of an ace bandage wrapped tightly around her chest, but it’s the spattering of freckles and jagged scars across her wide shoulders and muscular back that holds her attention.

“So what do you do to get all pumped and broad like that?” she asks. Her mother’s prescribed exercise routine had emphasized power disguised with leanness, and as they’re in the same line of work Laurie finds the differences in their bodies genuinely interesting.

“Work,” Rorschach grunts, holding the cuff up into the light for a better look. The room either didn’t come with any curtains or they were pulled down to be used as bandages long ago. In their place, Rorschach has pasted layers of newspaper over the glass. What sunlight filters through the columns of text is dim and yellow-gold, making the tiny room feel warm and sleepy.

Apparently satisfied with the quality of her scrub job—not that Laurie can really see the difference, given the quantity of old blood stains—Rorschach drapes the shirt across an impromptu clothes line strung between the wardrobe and the window to dry.

She gestures for the bundle in Laurie’s arms, but when Laurie moves to untangle the trench from her own clothes Rorschach interrupts with a shake of her head.

“Give me your suit,” she says.

Laurie blushes, clutching at it all the tighter. “I can wash my own costume, thank you.”

Rorschach sighs, holds out a hand, but doesn’t ask again. Laurie hands it over.

“So am I just supposed to sleep naked?” she asks, trying to pick out Rorschach’s intentions.

“Hmph.” Rorschach nods towards the room’s lone rather rickety chair, where another of her undershirts sits folded on the seat. “Have a shirt you can wear. Was getting ready to cut it up for rags, anyway.”

“Gee, thanks.” Laurie picks the tank up gingerly, holding it at arm’s length, but the smell isn’t as bad as she was expecting. Smells a bit like cologne, actually. Nostalgia, or something similar. Dropping the towel, she steps back into her panties and pulls the tank over her head. With the mask on Laurie can’t tell if Rorschach is watching. She sticks her tongue out just in case she is.

The chair looks like it might collapse at the slightest touch, so she flops down on the bed to watch Rorschach carefully rinse the worst of the filth out of the yellow silk. There’s a smoothness to the way she handles the fabric, careful not to snag the sheer cloth with her calloused hands and ragged fingernails, that Laurie finds intriguing. She’s seen those same hands bend a man’s fingers all the way backwards to touch his wrist.

“Fair warning, I sometimes kick in my sleep. If I nail you, you’re more than welcome to nail me back.”

“Won’t be a problem,” assures Rorschach primly. “Will be sleeping in the chair.”

“ _What?_ ” Laurie looks again to be sure, but the furniture in question doesn’t appear to have grown any sturdier.

“No, c’mon. Look, I can make do with the floor. Don’t let me take the bed from you, not when you’ve given— When you’ve let— ” She cuts herself off, unsure of how to articulate what she means, not even sure what to call this… this _thing_ that they’re doing.

“Have done it before. Insist.”

Rorschach’s tone is final and Laurie knows from experience just how stubborn she can be, but Laurie’s pretty stubborn herself. The argument could have gone on until Rorschach dug out a moldy old copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette and smacked her with it but Laurie is frankly too tired to push it any further.

If there’s a pillow it’s well camouflaged beneath Rorschach’s pile of crap, so Laurie pushes and tugs at the pile of dirty laundry until it looks comfortable enough and leans back against it. She uncovers the corner of a sheet during her digging and, yawning, drapes it lightly over her legs.

She means to stay up a little longer, maybe argue some more with Rorschach about the bed situation once she’s rested her eyes a bit. In the corner of the room the radiator rattles to noisy life; a baby cries out in complaint across the hall; outside the air echoes with the blare of car horns and whirr of electric engines.

Laurie means to stay up, really she does, if only to pick out the particulars of Rorschach’s soft, half-muttered grousing at the sink—something about her tailor and shoddy workmanship—but the drip of the tap and the gentle, rhythmic swishing of fabric through water weaves in and around the sounds of life in the city, muting all of their edges into a New York lullaby.

She sleeps.

*

She wakes.

The room is dimmer but not full-dark—it isn’t night quiet yet. She’s kicked herself free of the sheet at some point, leaving her long legs bare and exposed, but Laurie wouldn’t be running around in a costume as skimpy as hers if she wasn’t comfortable in all but extremes in temperature. She’s about to close her eyes and ease back into slumber when she notices a dark, looming shape at the foot of the bed.

It’s Rorschach. Laurie’s glad to see she’s abandoned the rickety wooden chair for the end of the bed itself. If she’s asleep then she’s even more of a robot than Laurie long suspected. She’s sitting bolt upright, cross-legged, arms folded, shoulders straight and rigid with tension, the resolute austerity of her posture betrayed by the slight, rhythmic clenching of her muscular thighs and the heavy edge to each inhalable of breath.

It takes a moment, but Laurie recognizes the motion from some of her own first naïve experiments with her body. The realization wakes her up fully, makes her heart thump heavily in her chest, but she doesn’t open her eyes fully just yet. Better to survey her opponent for possible weaknesses and unseen advantages before springing to attack.

Rorschach’s blots are pointed straight ahead but Laurie’s not fooled by the mask. She can feel her gaze even through the heavy, swirling ink, can make an educated guess at its direction. Slowly, as if in sleep, she shifts her legs, sliding one smoothly across the other, and grins at the hitch in Rorschach’s carefully measured breathing.

“You know, there are a lot more direct ways to get your rocks off.”

To her credit, Rorschach doesn’t jump, but the guilty way she uncrosses her legs only to clamp back them back together again, as if to erase all the evidence of what she’s been doing, tells Laurie all that she needs to know.

That and the fact that the room stinks like sex.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rorschach rasps. The pale, freckled skin of her chest and shoulders is brilliantly flushed with a violent red pattern of Rorschach blotches.

“Of course you don’t.” She prods Rorschach’s knee experimentally with her foot; the masked woman tenses but doesn’t move away. “Is that why you wear pants? Jesus, do the seams ever ride up high and tight enough for you to grind against them during patrol?”

The blots on Rorschach’s mask look absolutely scandalized at the idea.

“Kidding, kidding! Besides, I meant what I said about more direct means of stimulation. For example—”

“Know that, Miss Juspeczyk,” Rorschach hisses. “Am not ignorant of the myriad forms of human depravity. No need to list—“

“—you could ask me to go down on you.” To emphasize her point, Laurie slides her foot from the platonic safety of Rorschach’s knee up to rest lightly along the inside of her thigh.

Rorschach’s mouth closes with an audible click. It’s almost a full minute before she finds her voice again.

“That would be—”

“Awesome?”

“ _Inappropriate_. Distasteful, demeaning—“

“And awesome!”

“ _No._ ”

“Okay.” Laurie props herself up on her elbows, withdraws her foot. Rorschach makes an indiscernible noise as the loss of contact. “Okay. Too far, too fast. So what _do_ you want?” Rorschach is already shaking her head, so Laurie changes tactics.

“What where you thinking about while I was sleeping?” she asks quietly.

Rorschach is gripping her own arms so hard that her knuckles are white, but Laurie’s already guessed at her weak spot. Arching her back, she stretches her legs, cat-like, moaning softly in genuine relief at the pull of well-used muscles.

“What were you looking at, Rorschach?”

“Your legs,” she chokes.

“Why?”

Rorschach swallows.

“Are strong. Disciplined.” One hand has freed itself from the prison of her crossed arms, is hovering just over Laurie’s ankle, not touching. “Scarred.”

The way Rorschach whispers the word it sounds reverent, like a prayer to some long-forgotten saint. Laurie blinks, looking down the plane of her body to the dimly shining length of her bare legs, the flesh sporadically crisscrossed with faint white lines and mottled with bruises in all stages of healing. When she wears short skirts in civilian life it’s typically with tights.

“Yeah well, they come with the job, don’t they?”

“Yes,” rasps Rorschach, blots thick and dark. “They do.”

*

Rorschach’s approach to foreplay can only be described as ‘glacial’. It takes for-fucking-ever—a touch here, a ghost of breath there—but as the ice sheet of her reservation draws back it reveals a new, rugged territory clawed from the earth, jagged peaks and lush valleys that call for exploration.

Rorschach’s hands are smaller than Laurie expected, cold with panic but dry. The close first around Laurie’s ankles, thumbs pressed into the hard line of her Achilles tendon as fingers trace the shining, circular callous worn by the straps of her heels, before sliding soft and hesitant up the length of her calves, Rorschach’s breathing deep and heavy.

Laurie shifts and squirms down the bed until she can wrap both legs completely around the other woman, pulling her close to rest in the cradle between her legs. Rorschach teeters, briefly off-balance, but manages to catch herself on the bed, letting out a _whuff_ in half-heated protest at the abrupt shift in position or Laurie’s impatience, maybe both.

Grinning, Laurie flicks at the bulge where her mask pulls tightly across her nose, though she manages to resist the sudden, surprisingly strong impulse to give a good solid tweak. Rorschach growls and nips at her knee in retaliation, the scrape of teeth blunted by her mask’s thick latex.

The surprise of it is enough to make her gasp, but the sensation alone is enough to curl her toes and make something throb low and heavy in her belly. “Oh _fuck_ me!” Then, just in case Rorschach needs it spelled out in flashing neon: “Do that again.”

Rorschach hesitates, head tilted as if questioning Laurie’s sanity, but repeats the movement. It jangles her nerves the same way landing a really good hit does, shuddering aftershocks shooting down her spine. Rorschach switches sides, biting softly at her other knee, then sooths the area with a firm press of lips through the mask. It would be chaste if Rorschach didn’t linger so close to Laurie’s inner thigh, if Laurie couldn’t feel the hard muscles of her back fluttering with restraint.

Slowly, with increasing urgency, Rorschach traces up the crooked line of her leg, pausing to mouth reverently at last night’s bruises, the thin white line left across the back of her thigh by a switchblade years ago in her rash and careless teens. Laurie holds her breath, unsure just how far Rorschach is going to go, but rather than balking Rorschach butts up hard against her sex and nuzzles there, breath hitching into deep, desperate sobs as if trying to drown herself in Laurie’s smell.

Christ. _Christ._

Between her underwear and Rorschach’s mask there’s not much direct stimulation but the visual is pretty fucking fantastic. Still, no reason it can’t be better. Laurie worms one hand down between her legs, shivering at the contrasting temperatures of the heated flesh beneath her palm and the cool slip of latex along the back of her knuckles.

The cotton fabric of her panties is slick with her wetness. Slipping her fingers beneath the elastic, Laurie strokes down through the damp curls of her hair and along the hot, swollen throb of her clit, scratching with the smooth edge of one nail along the edge of her hood. She shivers at the sensation, how it skirts just on the edge of pleasure, and flicks the nail lightly across the taut head.

Rorschach mouths at her through the layers of fabric, growls. The vibration of it and the scrape of her nails are too much, so Laurie backs off, settling into a rhythmic, pressing circling with the pads of two fingers, pace guided by the rise and fall of Rorschach’s head, the push and pull of her body as she grinds against the dirty sheets.

Rorschach’s hard, bony hands dig and paw desperately at the flesh of her thighs, hard enough that the blunt nails scrape and leave red crescents where they clench, but Laurie doesn’t care. There’s a white heat building between her legs, making her hips buck and her knees quake, the electric buzz of it riding hard and fast just along the edge of numbness, just this side of sensation overload.

With her free hand she cups at the top of Rorschach’s head, feeling the hard contours of her skull, marveling in the way the black twists and coils with the white but never mixes, the pattern scattering in the warm wake of her hand.

She’s _so close_ to—

One pull, one moment of betrayal and she could—

And Rorschach’s _letting_ her, she _trusts_ —

 _She_ —

*

Laurie pants, breathless, through the aftermath, hands running loose and vague over Rorschach’s head and shoulders, trying to find enough purchase and grip strength to haul her up to eye-level, but Rorschach’s pulling away from the loose clasp of her limbs, scuttling backward off the bed and tripping over a pile of newspapers in the haste of her retreat.

“Rorschach—?”

Rorschach paces rapidly back and forth across the room, looking lost, arms rigid and hands clenching and unclenching into sweaty, white-knuckled fists at her side.

“Yes,” she answers before Laurie can even begin to voice the rest of the question. “Yes.” She pauses briefly at the window, staring blindly beyond the abstract collage of backlit newsprint, before turning abruptly on one heel and marching to the door. Fumbling one-handed with the locks, she tears off her mask and stuffs it into her pocket a mere moment before opening the door.

Harsh fluorescent light floods in from the hallway. Temporarily blinded, all Laurie can make out of Rorschach unmasked in a black silhouette topped with a halo of bright copper curls before the door closes solidly behind her.

Suddenly alone in the room, Laurie sits up, unsure of what to do. She spends a minute debating following after her but decides it would be better to wait. She has no doubt that Rorschach will come back, if only for the rest of her costume and the leather-bound journal Laurie’s seen her reference on occasion.

If Rorschach needs some time and space to herself after what they’ve done, Laurie is more than happy to respect that distance. It’s been a big day for Rorschach. Hell, if Laurie had somebody see through such a major component of her crime-fighting persona, compromised her secret identity by taking that person home for a nap, and stumbled into heavy petting and kinda oral sex, she’d probably need a moment to herself to process the whole thing, too.

She waits long enough that she starts to doze, dreams a half-remembered dream of smoke slipping through her fingers. The soft click of the door and rattle of the security chain drags her out from the shadows of sleep and back to the dim reality of wakefulness. Rorschach is standing in the doorway, mask back on but pulled upward to rest across the bridge of her nose, watching her.

“Hey,” Laurie whispers, groggy with sleep. She opens her arms. “C’mere.”

Rorschach’s calmer now, breathing even and limbs no longer shaking, but she approaches the bed with the slow, stalking caution of an alley cat investigating a proffered can of food.

It isn’t until Rorschach climbs back on top of Laurie that she realizes that she’s soaking wet, skin slick and cool beneath her fingers. Went to the showers to think, then. Didn’t even bother to dry off, judging by the way her clothes are sticking to her. Her white tank is nearly transparent in places, and Laurie notes with a pleasant buzz that the binding bandage she’d been wearing earlier is gone. The soft shifting of her breasts is faint but noticeable, as are the stiff, dark peaks of her nipples.

“Sorry,” Rorschach mumbles, carefully straddling across Laurie’s hips. Laurie catches her around the waist, pulling at her until Rorschach is firmly seated, the hard bones of her pelvis settled just above her pubis, knees tucked tightly along the stretch of her waist. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Laurie says, pressing her palms up the bunched muscles of Rorschachs legs, over the jutting crest of her hip bones, up the small of her back, and back. Repeats the motion, going a little higher with each pass, digging a little harder, until Rorschach groans and leans forward into the rough massage, bracing her weight with a hand on each side of Laurie’s head. “What do you need me to do?”

“Don’t need—” Rorschach swallows, starts over. “Would appreciate you not mentioning this to Nite Owl.”

“The hot lesbian sex part or the brief interlude devoted to freaking out in the bathroom part?”

“Both, if possible.” Rorschach squirms as Laurie’s hands toy with the hem of her shirt, slipping tickling fingers underneath to brush up her spine and along the hard, ripped plane of her abdomen, but somehow manages to come across as cool and composed.

Laurie smiles. “You got it. Care for round two of hot vigilante on vigilante action?”

“That course of action sounds… favorable.”

“Good.” Rorschach lets out a small _ehnk_ of surprise as Laurie pops open the button of her pants and starts pulling eagerly at her zipper. “Because I’ve been dying to see what those blots of yours look like when you orgasm.”

She expects Rorschach’s underwear to be high-waisted and plain, or maybe—the thought makes her mouth water—a demure silk edged in the same lilac pattern as the handkerchief she’d given her earlier, but no, it’s even better than that.

Rorschach’s not wearing underwear at all.

*

Laurie knows that there’s a whole freight car full of baggage more that Rorschach’s leaving unsaid, but she doesn’t push, deciding that it’s Rorschach business entirely when, or even if, she continues the conversation.

Only later, kneeling together on the bed, their bodies flushed and sticking, Rorschach clinging to her shoulders as if life itself depends on it, will she pick up the train of thought again, whispering so fast and frantic into the long hollow of her neck that Laurie has to strain to make it out.

“It’s just. Sometimes I don’t— Sometimes I _wish_ —“

Rorschach shudders, body arching as deep within, Laurie crooks her fingers again and again, but she keeps talking, voice strained with frustration and despair.

“Partners,” she whimpers. “You know?”

Laurie kisses her then, first at the edge of the snaking blot curled around her eye, then in a slow, soft arc down her cheek to catch hungrily at the corner of her wide, bruised mouth.

“Yeah,” says Laurie. “I know.”

*

Laurie’s costume is still a little damp by the time they suit up that evening, the last flashes of the setting sun flooding the tiny room with an orange glow nearly as fiery as Rorschach’s hair. Her panties aren’t in much better shape, washed last minute and hastily dried under the hot air of the automatic hand dryer in the communal bathroom, but she figures that her body heat combined with the night wind will have both remedied soon enough.

She’s sore, but it’s a good ache, an echo of battles well fought and victories hard won. With each pull and stretch of her muscles as she climbs and prowls and leaps over the city Laurie remembers the pull and stretch of another body intertwined with hers.

It all feels a bit unreal now, away from the close stuffiness of Rorschach’s tiny room and out in the cold night air of the wide, dirty world, Rorschach wrapped once again in protective layer upon layer of men’s fashion, but Laurie won’t soon forget how perfectly Rorschach’s small breasts, wide and faintly flat, had fit into her hands, the pleasant scrape of her nipples along Laurie’s palms.

Leaping from one rooftop to the next, they at last come to a stop atop a factory in the heart of the Garment District. Rorschach looms at the edge of the roof, blots demonic, and stares down into the screaming neon maw of the city below like a modern gargoyle in a blood-stained fedora.

There was a time when Laurie would have been genuinely creeped by the pose, but now it evokes a much more pleasant memory. Rorschach, bent double as if in pain staring down at her with mouth agape, clenching and clenching around her fingers while Laurie sucked mercilessly at her clit until she’d cried out her name—not the name her mother had tried to run from, not the mask her mother had hidden behind before passing down to her—but a high, desperate ‘Laurel’ moments before another shuddering orgasm robbed her of speech.

“So what’s the plan, Stan? Down to the docks to beat up low-level mob smugglers until they drop a tasty lead, or should we leave the tragic death of Mr. Shrimpy to the cops?”

Rorschach tilts her head, hands in pockets. “Been thinking. Said the plan had changed, gotten a new gimmick. For what? Mob not known for themed crimes, also not many circumstances where explosives can easily be substituted.”

“What do you think they meant to use them for?”

“Not sure. Boss could mean Underboss. Power weakened by imprisonment, but has been able to retain enough loyalty and contacts to continue limited form of business. Unclear what use would have for such volatile explosives. Mostly deals drug shipments and counterfeit luxury wear.”

“Is that why we’re here?” She cranes her neck to look over the edge of the building, but from this angle she can’t make out the name of the brand on the building’s signage.

“No,” Rorschach grunts.

“So… what? This your thinking spot, or something?”

This at last earns Laurie an annoyed sort of harrumph. It’s quickly becoming one of her very favorite noises.

“Scheduled to patrol with Nite Owl. This the meet-up point.”

As if on cue, there’s a roar of engines overhead. Laurie looks up just in time to catch the bronze, rounded shape of Nite Owl’s airship break and bank back around towards them Nite Owl himself just visible through the large, round windows of the ship. He nods at them and pulls around to hover alongside their rooftop. Burners flare and sputter as the owlship stabilizes and a hatch opens along its side with a pneumatic hiss.

“Hey!” Nite Owl pokes his head out, waving. “You didn’t head by the Owl Nest earlier, did you? Sorry if I missed you.”

“No.” Rorschach nods at Laurie. “Been working on a case with Silk Specter.”

“Oh, uh.” Nite Owl adjusts his goggles and smiles at her sheepishly, so adorable that Laurie forgives him for being blind as a fucking bat. “Hi. If it’s urgent I’ll leave you to it, but—“

“It isn’t,” Laurie interjects. “Gone cold for now. What’s up?”

Nite Owl jerks a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing vaguely northward. “There’s a riot up at Sing Sing, sounds like they’re really tearing the place apart. You in?”

Laurie looks to Rorschach, uncertain of their dynamic and not wanting to step unintentionally on any land mines, not sure that she’s even still welcome to show her face in Rorschach’s territory after this afternoon, but Rorschach nods and steps aside, indicating the waiting ladder with a slight bow and a sweep of one purple-gloved hand.

“Ladies first,” she growls.

“What’s so funny?” asks Nite Owl as she clambers up the ladder--half-smiling but his eyebrows quirked with worry, probably concerned about her mental health--but Laurie is laughing too hard to make excuses and she’s not about to explain.


End file.
